Ghost Hunter (19 page)

"You're one of her creatures!" snarled Torak.

"Whose?"

"Eostra!"

"The one who has taken the Mountain?"

"Don't pretend you don't know!"

"Oh, I know. I've seen her." Torak saw the shadows under his eyes. This boy had endured days and nights of fear.

Or else he was a good liar.

"You must be helping her!" Torak insisted. "Why else would you be here?"

"I was here before. I--" He broke off, turning his head to listen. "I'm coming soon," he called.

"Who's there?" said Torak suspiciously.

"You should rest," urged the boy. "You're dizzy."

As he said it, the giddiness got worse. "Are you a

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Mage?" Torak said. "Making me feel whatever you want?"

"A Mage? I don't think so."

Wolf was licking Torak's hand. Hazily, Torak saw that his pack-brother's wounds had been cleaned and smeared with salve, and that he seemed quite at ease with the stranger.

"At first he wouldn't let me near you," said the boy, holding out his fingers for Wolf to sniff.

"Why did you make me sleep?" said Torak, fighting to stay upright.

"I had to go and check my snares. I couldn't let you get away."

Torak blundered past him and grabbed his knife. "Give me my clothes. Let me out."

The cave was whirling. Gently, the boy took his knife and made him lie down on the hare-skins.

When Torak woke again, he was back under the musk-ox covering.

And he was bound hand and foot.

"Let me go."

"No."

"Why?"

"You'd get away."

"But I can't stay here!"

"Why?"

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Torak gave up struggling and stared at his captor.

The boy's hare-skin boots had been clumsily patched with bits of lemming, and his robe had been made by someone who'd never learned to sew. He sat with his hands between his knees, gazing wistfully at Torak.

"Who
are
you?" said Torak.

The pale lashes flickered. "I'm Dark."

Torak snorted. "Why'd they call you that?"

"They didn't. They threw me out before I got a name, so I chose Dark. I thought it might help."

Torak felt a flicker of pity, which he swiftly suppressed. "If you have nothing to do with Eostra, how come she hasn't killed you?"

"I keep off her dogs and the child-demon things with my slingshot. That's how I helped you when the dogs attacked. And Ark guards me when I sleep."

"Who's Ark?"

On its perch, the white raven fluffed its head-feathers.

"If Eostra wanted you dead," said Torak, "she'd have found a way."

"Yes. I think she likes the power. For her, I'm a game." He gave Torak his odd, stretched smile. "But now I've got you. I'm not alone anymore."

Torak couldn't figure him out. He was scrawny, but he'd managed to get Torak into his cave, and he'd done a good job of tying him up. Wolf sniffed the bindings, but

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when Torak told him in a furtive grunt-whine to chew the ones at his wrists, Wolf simply licked his fingers. "Are you hungry?" said Dark.

"No," lied Torak. "Who
are
you? How come you're here?"

Dark took half a dried trout from inside his robe and began to gnaw. "When my mother carried me in her belly, a white hare ran in front of her, so I was born like this." He touched his cobweb hair. "My mother said I was Swan Clan like her, but when I got older I began to see things, and they said I brought bad luck. My mother protected me, but when I was eight summers old, she died. Next day, Fa took me into the Gorge. I thought he was going to give me my clan-tattoos, but he left me. I kept the trail markers clear so he could find me again. But he never came back."

"Didn't you try to make your own way out?"

"Oh, no. I knew I had to stay."

Torak thought about that. "So you've been here ever since?"

Dark indicated the stone creatures thronging the ledges. "One for each moon."

"But--that must be seven winters. How did you survive?"

"It was hard," said Dark, picking a fish bone from between his teeth. "The first three winters, someone left food. After that, nothing. I was cold till I gathered

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the musk-ox wool. Once, my teeth went bad. They hurt till I knocked some out with a rock." He paused. "I was alone. Then I found Ark. Some crows were pecking her because she was white. I named her Ark--it was the first thing she said to me." He grinned. "She likes her name; she says it a lot!"

"So all this time, it's been just you and the raven?"

"And the ghosts."

Wolf got up and trotted deeper into the cave. Dark turned his head to listen.

"You--can see ghosts," said Torak. Dark nodded calmly.

It was very still in the cave. Torak said, "Was that a ghost you were talking to before?"

"My sister, yes. But as she's a ghost, she doesn't remember she
is
my sister."

Torak peered into the shadows, but all he could see was Wolf, who sat sweeping the floor with his tail. He said, "Have you seen the ghost of a man who looks like me? Long dark hair? Wolf Clan tattoos?"

"No. Who's that?"

Torak did not reply. "But we are inside the Mountain? The Mountain of Ghosts?"

"Yes."

"Are there other caves?"

"Lots. I like the whispering cave, because of the ghosts. But I haven't gone there since she took it. She

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brought demons and the cold red stone."

Torak's heart began to pound. "How do you get there? To the whispering cave?"

"Many ways."

"Take me there."

"No."

"You've got to. How long have I been asleep?"

"Urn--nearly two days."

"Two days?"
shouted Torak. "But that means tonight is Souls' Night!"

His shouts brought Wolf racing to his side.

Now Torak understood why Eostra had let him escape: because he hadn't. It suited her to leave him cocooned like a fly in a spider's web, until such time as she had a use for him.

"Dark, listen to me," he said, forcing himself to keep calm. "Tonight the Soul-Eater will do something terrible. I don't know exactly what, but I know she means to conquer the dead, and use them to rule the living. You have to let me go!"

"But in your sleep you said she wants to kill you. You must stay with me. You're safe here."

"After tonight, nowhere will be safe, she'll be too strong! With the dead at her command, she'll rule the Mountains, the Forest, the Sea!"

"What's the Sea?" said Dark.

Torak let out a roar that shook the cave.

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Wolf set back his ears and yowled. Ark flapped her wings.

With a huge effort, Torak mastered his temper. "Maybe this will persuade you. In some way I don't understand, my father's spirit is tangled up with her. If I can stop her, maybe I'll help him, too. Now do you see why you
have
to let me go?"

A shadow crossed Dark's extraordinary face, and he seemed suddenly older. "My father left me. He never came back."

Torak set his teeth. "What if it was Ark who needed help? You'd do anything to save her, wouldn't you?"

Dark wrung his chalk-white hands till the knuckles cracked. Torak could see that he was torn. "Winters and winters I've been here," he said. "You're the first person, the first living person."

Sensing his turmoil, Ark flew onto his shoulder.

Wolf glanced anxiously from Torak to Dark and back again.

Torak waited.

Dark shook his head. "No. I can't let you go."

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TWENTY-NINE

One day"
said Renn as she limped over the boulders. "That's all I asked. One day!" A stone whizzed down and smashed behind her. "Sorry," she muttered to the Hidden People. They didn't like it when she spoke too loudly. They didn't much like her. But so far they'd tolerated her; maybe because of the little bundles of rowan twigs she'd left at every trail marker.

It had been two days since Torak left. The Swans had wanted to leave at once, but Renn had insisted that they remain at the mouth of the Gorge. She'd spent a

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desperate day in camp, grinding her teeth as she waited for her ankle to get better. Next morning she'd lied to the Swans that it was, and headed after Torak. They hadn't tried to stop her. They'd simply given her provisions and watched her go.

At first, things had gone well. Torak's trail had been easy to follow, and though her ankle ached, she could walk on it. She'd jumped at every sound, but her Mage's sense had told her that Eostra's creatures were far away. And in the afternoon, she'd made a heartening discovery: a rocky shelter that was unmistakeably Torak's. She'd spent the night in it, and fallen asleep planning what she would say when she caught up with him.

She'd woken stiff, cold, and scared. A pallid sliver of moon hung in the morning sky. Tomorrow night was Souls' Night.

She hadn't gone far when she found the bones of a hare, picked clean by ravens. Nothing odd about that; and yet her hand had crept to her clan-creature feathers. Malice hung in the air. Bad things had happened here. Evil had soaked into the rocks.

That had been a while ago, but she was still shaken. Her boots crunched noisily over frozen scrub and black lichen brittle as cinders. The glug of her waterskin sounded like footsteps. She stopped, to make sure that they weren't.

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"They're not real," she said out loud. "There's nothing here."

The stones tensed. She felt the Hidden People watching.

Eostra was watching too.

Clouds began pouring over the edge of the cliffs. Stealthily, they swallowed the Gorge, folding Renn in a clammy embrace. Eostra hadn't sent her dogs to drive her back. She didn't need to.

Like a winged shadow at the corner of her vision, Renn felt the presence of the Eagle Owl Mage. Fog stole down her throat and took her breath. Her ankle throbbed. Her courage slunk away. Why go on, when she was doomed to fail?

She had an odd sensation of watching herself from above. There she was, a lame girl cowering in a ravine. She would never find Torak. He had left because he wanted to face Eostra alone: because he wanted to die, and be with his father. And soon that wish would be fulfilled.